Enter Michelozzo’s
courtyard at Palazzo Medici Riccardi and in the left-hand corner, mounted in an
early eighteenth-century frame is a small marble that Gabriele Morolli and
Alessandro Vezzosi say are a Michelangelo ‘hidden in plain sight.’
Their conclusions are
presented in the 2012 volume Michelangelo
Assoluto, and are based on primarily visual evidence: the figure of Cupid
is similar to the non-finito baby
Christs of the Pitti and Taddei tondi, while the muscular female body can be
seen in many of Michelangelo’s drawings and finished works.
The 43.5x58cm marble
relief of a Venus and Cupid was incorporated into the large, baroque frame made
to display the Riccardi’s antique collection in the 1700s.
Vezzosi believes the
relief to be a youthful work from 1504-1505, which would make it an important
antecedent for both the stylistic type of the reclining Venus that the artist
returned to in 1532-1533, and the pose with a bent upper leg, generally
believed to be an invention of Raphael around 1511.
Now that it has been
brought to the attention of art historians, the attribution will be subject to
scrutiny. The scholars acknowledged that attributions to Michelangelo are often
made and disproven, but they believe that this piece stands out for its
exceptional quality.
